Mellon-Sawyer Seminar Series 2017-18 Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation / Oxford Brookes University Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant Reference Number AXR00420 Final Report

Table of Contents Summary ...... 1 Recruitment ...... 2 Management ...... 4 Semester 1: Textual Commemoration ...... 5 Keynote ...... 5 Panel-Led Workshop 1: Poetry and Life-Writing ...... 6 Panel-Led Workshop 2: Conflict and Community ...... 7 Postgraduate Event: Memorable Objects ...... 9 Semester 2: Monumental Commemoration ...... 10 Keynote ...... 10 Panel-Led Workshop 1: Museums and National Identity ...... 11 Panel-Led Workshop 2: Grave Stones ...... 13 Postgraduate Event: Commemoration & Creativity Forum ...... 14 Semester 3: Aural Commemoration ...... 17 Keynote ...... 17 Panel-Led Workshop 1: Music and Memory ...... 17 Panel-Led Workshop 2: The Rest is Silence ...... 19 Postgraduate Conference: Post-War Remembrance, Recollection, Reconciliation ...... 20 Public Concert: Remembrance ...... 23 Public Poetry-Reading: ‘A Crack of Light’ ...... 25 Media ...... 25 Impact and Legacy ...... 25

Summary The Mellon-Sawyer Seminar Series Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation took place at the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University in 2017-18. The Co-Convenors were Professor Kate McLoughlin (Faculty of English, University of Oxford) and Dr. Niall Munro (Department of English and Modern Languages, Oxford Brookes University). Our aim was to explore and compare the ways in which commemorative practices both contribute to and challenge post-war reconstruction and reconciliation across cultures and time-periods. We brought together academics from a variety of disciplines, policy-makers, figures from NGOs and the charitable sector, military veterans, and—a particularly distinctive feature—

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

1 creative practitioners: poets, novelists, memoirists, dramaturges, architects, architects, sculptors, and musicians. The first semester (October – December 2017) focused on textual commemoration (words and images), the second semester (January – March 2018) on monumental commemoration (memorials, museums, sculptures, installations, gravestones, battle sites), and the third semester (April – June 2018) on aural commemoration (music, sound and silence). After early discussion by the Research Team, we identified three questions to carry across all three semesters:

(i) who is post-war commemoration for, and why? (ii) how does commemoration lead to post-war reconstruction and reconciliation? (iii) what is the future of post-war commemoration?

In each term, we began with a keynote event (a lecture or an ‘in-conversation’) featuring a major international figure from the creative arts, and then held two panelled workshops for academics and other specialists, and a post-graduate event. The panel-led events took the form of brief (7-minute) statements by the four or five panelists, followed by chaired plenary discussion, directed discussion in break-out groups, and final chaired discussion in plenary again. In the final term, we also had a public concert—Remembrance—in Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre featuring the Southbank Sinfonia and the Parliament Choir, and a public poetry-reading.

Recruitment We began by recruiting a post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Catherine Gilbert, who came to us from King’s College . The international field of applicants—66 in total—was extremely strong and we were hugely impressed by the achievements of the vast majority of the applicants. Dr. Gilbert, a specialist in francophone Rwandan women’s literature, joined us on 1 July 2017. Dr. Gilbert’s principal responsibilities were to work with the Co-Convenors to shape the Series’ intellectual content; create, maintain, and develop a social media presence for the Series; discharge administrative and organizational duties in connection with the Series (including managing the budget); act as a source of information relating to the Series; direct and mentor the three postgraduate fellows; and represent the Series externally. Dr. Gilbert discharged these duties with aplomb and proved invaluable.

We also recruited three postgraduate fellows: Alexander Donnelly, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Oxford; Johana Musálková, another doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Oxford; and Rita Phillips, a doctoral candidate in psychology at Oxford Brookes University. Our funding application was originally for two postgraduate fellows, so we were delighted that the boost to the pound followed by the Brexit referendum allowed us to appoint a third. All three made major intellectual and administrative contributions to the Series (from suggesting the format for the panel-led workshops to reporting back to plenary on the

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

2 discussions of break-out groups to chairing panels at the postgraduate events) while continuing successfully to work on their doctorates.

The Research Team After the Aural Commemoration Keynote Event L-R: Niall Munro (co-convenor), Johana Musálková (postgraduate fellow), Rita Phillips (postgraduate fellow), Kate McLoughlin (co-convenor), Jonathan Dove (composer), Patrick Toland (poet-in- residence), Kate Kennedy (broadcaster), Susie Campbell (poet-in-residence), Alex Donnelly (postgraduate fellow), Catherine Gilbert (postdoctoral fellow)

We also appointed an informal advisory board, comprising John Lord Alderdice (Liberal Democrat peer, peace negotiator and psychiatrist), Jeremy Treglown (author and former editor of the Times Literary Supplement), and Dr. Justine Shaw (early career academic and participant in the Ambitious Futures programme at Oxford). We asked the board to give us an ‘outside’ view of the Series, from both senior and junior perspectives. They have been immensely supportive, providing us with feedback on our events as the year progressed and advising us on speakers and participants.

The first panel-led workshop in Term 1 was attended by the Anglo-Welsh poet Jenny Lewis, a tutor on Oxford University’s Master’s in Creative Writing. Following her suggestion, we recruited five poets-in-residence for the Series (Susie Campbell, Sue Zatland, Mariah Whelan, Dahmicca Wright, and Patrick Toland). The poets attended and participated in events and in planning meetings, and put on the poetry reading at the very end. Their poems have featured on our blog and we plan to include them in the possible publication emanating from the Series.

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

3 Management The Co-Convenors and Dr. Gilbert held regular—approximately weekly—meetings (sometimes by Skype). The postgraduate fellows attended the major planning and debriefing meetings. The Co-Convenors held an appraisal meeting with Dr. Gilbert in the third Term—an opportunity to reflect on what she had learned and accomplished. We kept a shared folder online in which to track administrative tasks. For each ‘In Conversation’ event, we briefed the interlocutor extensively, and we did the same for the chair of each of the six panel-led workshops.

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

4 Semester 1: Textual Commemoration

Aminatta Forna in conversation with Professor Elleke Boehmer

Keynote

The Textual Commemoration Semester—and the Series as a whole—was launched by an ‘In Conversation’ event on 20 October 2017 in which the award-winning ScottishSierra Leone novelist and memoirist Aminatta Forna talked to Oxford’s Professor of World Literatures in English, Elleke Boehmer. This event was open to the public, and was attended by about 60 people.

The conversation ranged across the extent to which Forna’s investigative journalism constitutes a form of commemoration, the differences between memoir and fiction, the ways in which women commemorate, the desirability of forgetting violence and Forna’s membership of the ‘Children of Murdered Parents Club’. Poignant and fascinating, interlaced with humour, this opening event set the bar for the Series extremely high.

Our postgraduate fellow Johana Musálková was particularly struck by Forna’s idea that ‘novelists bring what she calls “the seventh sense” of imagination to witnessing; they bring interiority and try to make sense of what has happened. The narratives they construct aim at a different kind of truth than the literal truth which comes in the first line of witness testimonies.’ For Musálková, ‘[t]his discussion of the impact of the relationship between form, content, and the persona of the author was, for me, the most compelling.’

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

5 Panel-Led Workshop 1: Poetry and Life-Writing

On 21 October 2017, at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, panellists and audience gathered to discuss poetry and life-writing. The highlight of a wide-ranging discussion came when the chair, Professor Elleke Boehmer, asked the Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail, to read her poem ‘Bag of Bones’, first in English and then in Arabic. Most of the room could not understand the words, but all could understand the meaning, and this gave us a moment of human connection that we carried through the Series.

Chair Elleke Boehmer Professor of World Literatures in English, University of Oxford; novelist Panellists Dunya Mikhail Iraqi-American poet Philippe Sands, QC Human rights barrister; Professor of Law, UCL; writer Lord (John) Alderdice Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords; former Speaker of the Northern Irish Assembly; Director of the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict Jeremy Treglown Senior Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, London; former editor of The Times Literary Supplement; writer Participants Adnan al-Sayegh Iraqi poet and exile Íngrid Betancourt French-Colombian politician, former senator and Pulecio anticorruption activist; Supernumerary Fellow, Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford Christine Berberich Senior Lecturer in English Literature, University of Portsmouth Cherilyn Elston Lecturer in Spanish and Latin American Studies, University of Reading Kepa Fernández de Professor of Social Anthropology, Universidad Pública de Larrinoa Navarra, Spain Michael John-Hopkins Senior Lecturer in Law, Oxford Brookes University Nanor Kebranian HERA Postdoctoral Research Assistant in Theory, History, and Human Rights, Queen Mary University of London Frank Ledwidge Barrister; Senior Fellow, University of Portsmouth; military veteran Jenny Lewis Poet; Tutor, Master’s in Creative Writing, University of Oxford

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

6 Kate O’Regan Director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, University of Oxford Margie Orford South African journalist, author, film director Justine Shaw Academic Convenor WEF Programme, International Gender Studies, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Julia Viebach Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford Annie Webster PhD candidate, School of Oriental and African Studies, London Annabel Williams PhD candidate in English Literature, University of Oxford

Feedback from participants included the following remarks: - ‘This event provided an excellent overview of a number of important questions surrounding commemoration and allowed us to reflect from a variety of perspectives and experts from various disciplines. The event allowed me to think about commemoration in a broader context, beyond my disciplinary boundaries. It was extremely moving to hear the contributions from the poets and to be able to reflect in a very focussed workshop.’ - ‘It has made me question traditional approaches and see how “the future” could be “re-membered” differently if more creatively approached.’ - ‘I appreciate more widely the variety and the complexity of commemoration as well as the fact that commemoration and reconciliation may not always be possible or appropriate’.

Panel-Led Workshop 2: Conflict and Community

The second panel-led workshop of this Semester was held at Harris Manchester College on 11 November 2017. As this was Remembrance Day, a two-minute silence was kept, which informed our discussion of commemorative practices. The novelist Rachel Seiffert spoke about negotiating her difficult Nazi family heritage, and the disaster psychiatrist Richard Williams drew attention to the wordless numbness of firefighters after tackling a major incident.

Chair Helen Small Professor of English Literature, University of Oxford Panellists Rachel Seiffert Novelist Lyndsey Professor of Modern Literature and History, University of Stonebridge East Anglia Harvey Whitehouse Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford; Director, Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

7 Elleke Boehmer Professor of World Literature in English, University of Oxford; novelist Participants Fernando Alvarez MA candidate in Intelligence and International Security, King’s College London Shaista Aziz Journalist and equality campaigner Susie Campbell Poet-in-residence Robert Eaglestone Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought, Royal Holloway, University of London; Deputy Director, Holocaust Research Institute Nancy Martin Early career scholar, Faculty of English, University of Oxford Dan O’Gorman Lecturer in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature, Oxford Brookes University Shulamit Reinharz Jacob Potofsky Professor Emerita of Sociology, Brandeis University, USA Tessa Roynon Teaching and Research Fellow, Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford Justine Shaw Academic Convenor WEF Programme, International Gender Studies, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Yasmin Sidhwa Artistic Director, Mandala Theatre Company Jeremy Treglown Senior Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London Sue Zatland Poet-in-Residence Richard Williams Mass disaster psychiatrist; Emeritus Professor, Welsh OBE Institute for Health and Social Care, University of South Wales

Feedback from participants included the following remarks: - ‘Excellent panel, great format that encouraged everyone to contribute.’ - ‘The panel input was a brilliant start to the day … Having group discussions was really fascinating … Very pleased there was a mix of academics / artists / anthropologists involved in the event.’ - ‘The panel was fantastic—also the diverse backgrounds of everyone invited (academic, creative, professionals, different areas of study etc) made the discussions extremely useful and interesting.’

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

8 Postgraduate Event: Memorable Objects

Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, 24 November 2017

In this event, we offered post-graduates the opportunity to get behind the scenes at one of Britain’s most extraordinary museums. This training day in object-based research methods, with exclusive access to the Pitt Rivers Museum’s collection of memorial artefacts from around the world, gave those participating experience in working with experts and helped them learn about the ways in which memorial objects are collected, curated and conserved, focusing in particular on the themes of conflict, memory and reconciliation. Laboratory space restricted the numbers but the event was attended by twelve postgraduate students from universities around the world (including our own postgraduate fellows), and by two of our poets-in-residence.

Participants Course / Affiliation Alisan Avtur Graduate student, Pomeranian University, Poland

Michelle de Witt Research Master Arts and Culture: Art Studies (2015-2017), University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Alex Donnelly PhD candidate in Anthropology, University of Oxford

Alannah Jeune PhD candidate in History, University of Canterbury, New Zealand; Edward Gibbon Wakefield Trust visiting scholarship, Christ Church College, University of Oxford

Johana Musálková PhD candidate in Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford

Martha PhD candidate in Cultural History, Classics Department, King's Papaspiliou College London

Rita Phillips PhD candidate in Psychology, Oxford Brookes University

Peter Sawers MSt student in British and European History, University of Oxford

Eiko Soga MSc Japanese Studies, Nissan Institute, University of Oxford

Noah William Todd MA in Cultural Heritage Management, Department of Archaeology,

Jennifer Wong PhD student in Creative Writing, Oxford Brookes University

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

9 Nitai Yarnitsky MSt History of Art and Visual Culture, University of Oxford

One of the participants commented in a blog-post: ‘Our hosts encouraged us to resist the urge to analyze and interpret the objects before first observing them for what they were: things made by people who were not in the room to explain themselves or their stories. Only after the curators seemed convinced we could hold back our analysis were we allowed to discuss the symbolism and cultural implications of what we were observing. It was an exercise in intellectual restraint, and the reward was the opportunity to think differently by observing differently.’

In addition, one of our poets-in-residence, Mariah Whelan, wrote a poetry sequence in response to her experience at this event, which we hope to include in the Series publication.

Semester 2: Monumental Commemoration

Keynote

The Monumental Commemoration Semester was launched with a lecture by the internationally-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind at Oxford Brookes University on 9 February 2018. This event was open to the public, and was attended by about 350 people. Libeskind gave a magnificent tour d’horizon of his works, including the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Imperial War Museum North, the Felix Nussbaum Haus in Osnabrück, National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa and the World Trade Center masterplan in New York City.

Audience members commented that the event had made them think differently about commemoration. One observed that they would take away from the talk ‘the idea that commemoration doesn't have to be a state ritual but can simply be a matter of people coming together in a foyer or café’, whilst another found the talk personally moving, describing how, having lost both their parents last year, they could now conceive of commemoration as ‘more uplifting and thoughtful.’

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10

Daniel Libeskind lectures on monumental commemoration at Oxford Brookes University

Panel-Led Workshop 1: Museums and National Identity

The first panel-led workshop of this Semester took place at Oxford Brookes University on 10 February 2018. Contributions from the panellists took in Australia, Germany, South Africa, the UK and the USA, with the journalist Tony Horwitz offering a provocative solution for the Confederate statues in the southern United States: lose the dudes, keep the horses.

Chair Jane Potter Reader (Arts), Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies, Oxford Brookes University Panellists Mark Johnston Director of the Australian National Veterans Art Museum Emma Login First World War Memorials Programme Manager, Historic Christina Steenkamp Senior Lecturer in Social and Political Change, Oxford Brookes University Gabriel Moshenska Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, University College London Tony Horwitz Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, USA

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

11 Participants Wendy Asquith Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, Department of American and Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham Stephen Barker Heritage Advisor; Consultant, University of Oxford Geraldine Brooks Author and journalist, USA Susie Campbell Poet-in-residence Charlotte Cohen Youth Advisor to the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission; BA candidate in History at University College, Oxford Robert Cook Professor of American History, University of Sussex Oliver Cox Heritage Engagement Fellow, University of Oxford Kepa Fernández de Professor in Social Anthropology, Universidad Pública de Larrinoa Navarra, Spain Megan Gooch Learning Producer, Adult Learning at Historic Royal Palaces Annie Haight Senior Lecturer in Education, Oxford Brookes University Eureka Henrich Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, University of Hertfordshire Tanja Johnston Head of Arts Programs, Australian National Veterans Art Museum; art therapist Eric Murangwa Head of Programmes and Founder, Survivors Tribune; Founder and Managing Director of Football for Hope, Peace and Unity Graham Riach Departmental Lecturer in World Literature, University of Oxford Laura Tradii PhD candidate in Social Anthropology, Jeremy Treglown Senior Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London Dahmicca Wright Poet-in-residence Sue Zatland Poet-in-residence

Feedback from participants included the following remarks: - ‘A wonderful, collaborative discourse—generating extremely thought provoking references to commemoration—hugely rich and extremely diverse—wonderful networking across sectors.’ - ‘Largely challenging, great ways to rethink, recontextualize and regenerate creative opportunities—allowing storytelling and ‘creative’ means to evolve and emerge.‘ - ‘Made me consider dialectic between official and unofficial/bottom-up practices of commemoration and balancing different truths, memories and histories in museums and shared spaces.’

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

12 - ‘Loved the notion of pop-up and biodegradable memorials. Overall I’m more aware of the issues of human beings (individually and collectively) and their relationship to/in time.’

Panel-Led Workshop 2: Grave Stones

The second panel-led workshop of the Semester was held at Harris Manchester College on 3 March 2018. This brought together a former pastor of the bombed Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche in Berlin and the Dean of Coventry Cathedral: two religious communities connected through forgiveness and hope. This workshop was affected by unusually bad weather in the UK, so a number of participants were unable to attend.

Chair Joshua Hordern Associate Professor of Christian Ethics, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford Panellists Pfarrerin Cornelia Pastor of Evangelische Kirchengemeinde Berlin- Kulawik Dahlem; former pastor of Kaiser-Wilhelm- GedächtnisKirche, Berlin The Very Reverend Dean of Coventry Cathedral John Witcombe Silke Arnold-de Simine Reader in Memory, Media and Cultural Studies, Birkbeck, University of London Charles Gurrey Sculptor and carver Participants Matthew Allen Lecturer in Cultural Economy, University of Leicester Stephen Barker Heritage Advisor; Consultant, University of Oxford Sonia Boué Multiform Artist Altair Brandon-Salmon BA Candidate, History of Art Department, University of Oxford Reverend Dr Liz Emeritus Research Fellow in Theology, St John’s Carmichael College, University of Oxford Susie Campbell Poet-in-residence Thomas McLean DPhil Candidate in English, University of Oxford Justine Shaw Academic Convenor WEF Programme, International Gender Studies, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Marie Chantal Acting Chair, Urumuri Association Uwamahoro

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

13 Janet Wilson Professor of English and Postcolonial Studies, University of Northampton

Feedback from participants included the following remarks: - ‘It was a very productive conversation, it was great that participants were so diverse and showed so much goodwill to engage in conversation.’ - ‘I very much like the format of breakout groups as it allows the audience to participate in a way they might not do in larger groups—I find this a much better format than just talks.’ - ‘Especially interesting was the discussion about empathy and memorials for animals, the commemoration of positive or only negative events.’

Postgraduate Event: Commemoration & Creativity Forum

Oxford Brookes University, 10 March 2018

Our aim with this event was to challenge postgraduate students working on commemoration to think creatively. We asked delegates to give 5-minute presentations on their research, illustrated with a visual presentation. Dr. Justine Shaw, whose PhD thesis concerned modernism, the body and the senses, then led a candle-pouring session, in which delegates were asked to think about commemoration, memory and the sense of smell. Later, our poets-in-residence Susie Campbell, Sue Zatland, Mariah Whelan and Dahmicca Wright, led a workshop on collage poetry. Delegates were asked to cut the text of their presentations up and create a collage-poem by mixing the scraps with cut-out text from newspapers and magazines. We hoped that the exercise would help them think about their research and arguments in new, inspiring ways. Finally, the poets-in-residence read from their own work.

The papers were as follows, in order of presentation:

Participant Affiliation Paper Title Anna Katila King’s College, London Shaping Transnational PostWar Memory through Literary and Legal Narratives about the Rwandan and Bosnian Genocides Annabel University of Oxford ‘A threat of return’: Williams Commemoration and Travel in the Contact Zone

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

14 Lillian Hingley University of Oxford Can one write the wrong life?: The Dialectics of Adorno’s Aesthetic Commemoration Talitha Slabbert University of Oxford Memory and Dismemberment in Post-war Modernist Writing Elsa Gomis University of East Anglia Commemorate exile through images: The commemorative function of the collective memory of images Nitai Yarnitsky University of Oxford Destabilizing Memorials/Acknowledging Memory: The Case of Doris Salcedo's Noviembre 6 y 7 Kristin University of Brighton Performing Emotional O’Donnell Histories: Performative Re- enactment during the Centenary Commemorations of the First World War Eleanor Rowley University of Bath Addressing the visitor experience in First World War museums David Dickson University of Commemorative Culture and Portsmouth Women’s Stories – Exploring the interplay between Holocaust Commemoration and Holocaust Fiction Charlotte University of East Anglia The Violence of Peace: Hallahan Elizabeth Bowen’s ‘I Hear You Say So’ Sylwia Papier Jagiellonian University, KL Plaszow site – what next? Poland Johana University of Oxford The Possibilities and Limits of Musálková Victimhood

Hannah Wilson Nottingham Trent University The Materialisation of Sobibor Death Camp: Artefacts, Narratives and Representation Kelly Yin Nga University of Oxford Negotiating justice: Memory and Tse the war in Vietnam Linda Clayworth King’s College London What are memories made of?

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

15 Áron Bakos Babeș-Bolyai University, The Good, the Bad and the Romania Victim: Local Memories of the Second World War in Aranyosszék, Romania Imola Püsök University of Pécs, Cultural and Ecological Trauma in Hungary a Mining Community in Romania

Rita Phillips Oxford Brookes University Hero, Victims, Villains? An examination of British society's understandings of Veterans from the UK Armed Forces Sacha Van University of Glasgow Studying online war Leeuwen commemoration in theory and practice Alex Donnelly University of Oxford The ecology of conflict: imagined identities and divided communities in North West Pakistan

Feedback from participants included the following remarks: - ‘I very much enjoyed this event. I thought it was very interesting, innovative in its form, and well organized … It made me reflect more on various forms of commemoration and their artistic values.’ - ‘Academia should be more interdisciplinary and arts are definitely helpful.’ - ‘It was an excellent mix of thought-provoking academic presentations and relaxing, creative activities to make you view research from a fresh angle. I received great feedback and advice from the other presenters and it was a positive way to network with fellow PhD candidates. It has certainly opened up my mind to more creative forms of war commemoration and the many different angles to study it.’

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

16 Semester 3: Aural Commemoration

Keynote

Jonathan Dove in conversation with Dr. Kate Kennedy

The Aural Commemoration Semester was launched on 27 April 2018 by an ‘In Conversation’ in which the composer Jonathan Dove talked to broadcaster, musician and academic Kate Kennedy. The two discussed Dove’s choral work For an Unknown Soldier, thinking about children and young people in relation to commemoration; When She Died, his TV opera on the death of Princess Diana, exploring how music can reach a wide public; and his orchestra piece A Portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi, reflecting on how the subject’s changed reputation has affected the work. This event was open to the public, and was attended by about 40 people.

Considering the talk, our postgraduate fellow Rita Phillips was impressed with the way that Dove’s use of music could act not just as a form of commemoration, but as a part of the healing process as well after traumatic events such as armed conflict. She commented: ‘Music, in eliciting pre-cognitive empathetic responses, may therefore contribute to reconciliation by opening up societal spheres which contribute to understandings of “the other”, as well as through emotional catharsis and emotional liberation.’

Panel-Led Workshop 1: Music and Memory

The first panel-led workshop of this Semester met at Harris Manchester College on 28 April 2018. The music discussed was notably various—from 21st-century rock music

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

17 to First World War song, from music by and for women to Syrian oud music. Finally, the oud-player and panellist Rihab Azar gave a spell-binding performance of the last.

Chair Kate Kennedy Weinrebe Research Fellow in Life-Writing, Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, University of Oxford; musician; broadcaster Panellists Peter Grant Senior Fellow in Grantmaking, Philanthropy and Social Investment, Cass Business School, London; expert on popular music of the First World War Laura Hassler Director, Musicians Without Borders, The Netherlands Rihab Azar Oud-player, Syria and UK Participants Susie Campbell Poet-in-residence John Dunston Educationalist and choral conductor Bárbara Gallego Larrarte DPhil candidate in English, University of Oxford Alex Lloyd Lecturer in German, University of Oxford Hazel Marsh Lecturer in Latin American Studies, University of East Anglia Fiorella Montero Diaz Lecturer in Ethnomusicology, Keele University Juliana Pistorius DPhil candidate in Musicology, University of Oxford Robert Quinney Organist and Tutorial Fellow in Music, New College, University of Oxford Graham Riach Department Lecturer in World Literature, University of Oxford Sir Stephen Sedley Lord Justice of Appeal; Law Faculty, University of Oxford Patrick Toland Poet-in-residence Jeremy Treglown Senior Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London Laura Tunbridge Professor of Music, University of Oxford

Feedback from participants included the following remarks: - ‘I found the contributions from the panel members complementary (remarkably so), powerful, challenging and moving, and much valued the ensuing discussion which itself provided material for a more extended exploration.’ - ‘It made me think more about sincerity and authenticity of music and commemoration.’

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

18 - ‘I have learned of research that is of great interest to me. I have enjoyed all the discussion and find that questions raised / contributions give me ideas to help my own research.’ - ‘Brilliant contributors. Fascinating subject. Fantastic format … It has made me more positive about the healing potential of music.’ Panel-Led Workshop 2: The Rest is Silence

The last panel-led workshop of the Series convened at Oxford Brookes University on 19 May 2018. The subject—somewhat counter-intuitively—was silence. A Buddhist monk, a historian of the Two-Minute Silence, a researcher who has interviewed captured ISIS soldiers in the field and a retired headmaster of Quaker schools drew attention to different traditions, textures and types of silence—and we also kept silence in plenary, reflecting on the experience.

Chair Paul Whitty Professor in Composition, Oxford Brookes University; composer Panellists Adrian Gregory Associate Professor of History, University of Oxford Mahinda Deegalle Professor of Religions, Philosophies and Ethics, Bath Spa University John Dunston Educationalist and choral conductor Lydia Wilson Research Fellow, Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict, University of Oxford; Visiting Fellow, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the Graduate Center, City University New York Participants Susie Campbell Poet-in-residence Zoe Cormack Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, African Studies Centre, University of Oxford Nadia Hilliard Junior Research Fellow in Politics, Balliol College, University of Oxford Matt Leonard Conflict archaeologist Alexander Massey Composer and singer, prayer leader and celebrant, teacher and writer Noreen Masud Stipendiary Lecturer in English at Brasenose College and Balliol College, University of Oxford Maggie Ross / Sister Anglican Solitary and writer Martha

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

19 Justine Shaw Academic Convenor WEF Programme, International Gender Studies, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford Férdia Stone-Davis Tutor in Theology, Margaret Beaufort Institute, Cambridge Patrick Toland Poet-in-residence Kelly Tse DPhil candidate in English Language and Literature, St Anthony’s College, University of Oxford Mariah Whelan Poet and writer, Centre for New Writing, University of Manchester; poet-in-residence

Feedback from participants included the following remarks: - ‘This will enrich my thinking, feeling and composing around communication and the ethical purposes of my work. I am also delighted to make new and important connections with other people exploring these questions.’ - ‘It has made me think more deeply about commemoration through silence in particular. Silences [have] many functions in processes of remembering. It has inspired me to write something about it’ - ‘Very productive to engage with creative practitioners.’ - ‘I’m particularly struck by the discussion on the future of commemoration. Commemorative acts should indeed be future-oriented and come with ethical commitment.’ - ‘Sorry to see the series end—a productive and joyous experience throughout.’

Postgraduate Conference: Post-War Remembrance, Recollection, Reconciliation

The Series’ Postgraduate Conference, Post-War: Remembrance, Recollection, Reconciliation, took place on 26 May 2018. The keynote lecture was given by Marita Sturken, Professor of Media, Culture, and Communications at New York University, USA, who spoke about the experience of visiting the 9/11 memorial museum in New York.

We received over 60 paper proposals from postgraduates and early career academics from all over the world. Dr. Gilbert and our three postgraduate fellows selected 24, organized the panels and awarded the travel bursaries.

The papers were as follows, in order of presentation:

Participant Affiliation Paper Title

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

20 Jill Strauss City University of New On, Off, or Under the York, USA Pedestal: Reconfiguring U.S. Civil War Monuments to Change the Conversation Ulrike Capdepón Princeton University, Challenging the Symbolic USA Representation of the Franco Dictatorship: The Street Name-Controversy in Madrid Alison Atkinson-Phillips Newcastle University Re-Negotiating Memory in Fremantle, Western Australia Megan Gooch (Historic Royal Palaces I post, therefore I commemorate: Digital Commemoration and the Tower of London Poppies Michelle de Wit, Laura van National Holocaust Representing the Rij & Meike Roem Museum, Amsterdam, Unimaginable: An Audience The Netherlands Research on Representations of the Nazi Extermination

Camp Sobibor

Diana I. Popescu Birkbeck, University of Remembering with a London Purpose: Debating the Social Impact of Holocaust Commemorative Practice in the 21st Century Saman Tariq Malik University of Oxford BECOMING BIRANGONA: Post-1971 Cultures of Remembrance and Representations of the Bengali War Heroine in Tarfia Faizullah’s Seam Emma Dolan University of Aberdeen The Gendered Politics of ‘Comfort Women’ Commemoration Julia Carrillo Lerma SciencesPo, Paris, France Honouring ‘those who stayed’: Diasporic Memory and Commemorative Practices Nanor Kebranian Queen Mary University Genocide, Law, and of London Transnational Commemoration

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

21 Martha Papaspiliou King’s College London Post-War Remembrance in Greece: Performing Memory in National Celebrations Commemorating Gregory V of Constantinople (1871- 1872) Matt Lawson Oxford Brookes Three Germanies, One University Holocaust: Coming to Terms with the Past through Film in East, West, and Reunified Germany Annabel Williams University of Oxford Katabasis, and Commemoration in the Contact Zone Tom Vanassche ALU Freiburg. Germany Screen Memory and Reconciliation? Silence and Polemics in the Commemoration of Resistance Stephanie Munyard Cardiff University Translating the Word Beyond Speech: Reconciling Memories in Joseph Joffo's Un Sac de Billes Alina Zubkovych CBEES, Södertorn The Politics of University, Sweden Commemoration During the War: Re-actualization of Crimean Tatars in Mainland Ukraine Anne-Sophie Garcia McGill University, Beyond the Memorial: Canada Spectral Pasts in Latin American Media Art Ulrike Koppermann Viadrina European Commemoration through the University, Germany Perpetrators’ Lens? A Transdisciplinary Approach on Putting SS-photography into Perspective Deepak Naorem University of Delhi, India War Tourism: Reviving War Memories, Reconciliation and Economic Rebuilding in Northeast India

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

22 Julia Viebach University of Oxford The Economy of Recovery in Rwanda: Making Whole What Has Been Smashed through the Practice of CareTaking at Genocide Memorials Jodi Mikalachki University of Burundi Liturgical Commemoration and Reconciliation in Burundi: The Martyrs of Fraternity of Buta Kelly Yin Nga Tse University of Oxford ‘Righting’ the Cold War in Asia: Literary Commemoration and Reconciliation Jennifer Sin Barbican Centre Forgetting and Remembering: Waltz with Bashir Yoav Galai Central European The Victory Image: University, Hungary Photography and Israeli Warfighting in Lebanon and Gaza

Feedback from participants included the following remarks: - ‘The intimate nature of the conference, both in size and location, meant that there were far more opportunities to network than at other similar events. The hosts were also extremely friendly and welcoming. Definitely one of the best experiences I've had at an academic conference.’ - ‘Having a representative of the poppies initiative added a lot - there was some tension between this practice of a very insular and nationalist narrative and the critical interrogation of similar narratives in the conference.’ - ‘The breadth of commemorative practices discussed was revelatory.’ - ‘A truly enlightening day.’

Public Concert: Remembrance

This free public concert took place in Oxford’s most prestigious music venue—the Sheldonian Theatre—on 2 June 2018. The Southbank Sinfonia, the Parliament Choir (comprising members of the British House of Commons and House of Lords and their staff) and members of the City Choir Dunedin (New Zealand), under the baton of Simon Over, performed works by Vaughan Williams, Ravel and Augusta Holmès and, in the second half, the European première of Anthony Ritchie’s oratorio, From Gallipoli to the Somme. We invited the many contributors to the Series and the 650-seat theatre was filled. It was a thrilling and uplifting climax to all we had achieved.

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Excerpts from the concert will be soon available on our website, but we also received this response from the educationalist and choral conductor, John Dunston:

‘Last night was an extraordinary climax. Congratulations to all who conceived and then realised such an aurally, textually and metaphorically even monumentally perfect event with which to end the Series formally. It was a superb programme. The Lark Ascending began with unprecedented saxophone accompaniment which didn't deter the soloist and orchestra one bit, and then ended with real birdsong as the final violin strains faded away—a moment of pure enchantment, so English, so right for the occasion. To my shame, I had never heard of Augusta Holmes, but I loved her orchestral piece, rich and sonorous, uplifting and operatic. As for the Ravel, rarely can a performance have had such poignancy and power, despite the light-hearted nature of some of the movements, generating contrasting emotions which seem to have regularly surfaced during the year. All three pieces were hugely enhanced by Kate Kennedy's illuminating programme notes.

However, Anthony Ritchie's personal, colossal, majestic, ironic, heartbreaking piece was what took all our breath away. The programmatic selection of texts—many of which were little-known and may now become deservedly less so—was itself given new depth through that compelling music, somehow conveying a glimpse of the unfathomable. The symbolism of that violin suddenly became clear to all, too. The bitter juxtaposition of jolliness and catastrophe, of dreams and shattering reality: all was encompassed in the infinite range of vocal, choral and orchestral expression. On a personal note, Vive la Compagnie! brought back to mind a performance of the stirring original for male voices that I had conducted early in my career, without, of course, knowing anything of its being sung just before the Battle of the Somme. Last night's version was overwhelming, the utterly unexpected disintegration of both words and music at the end evocative of the end of Mahler's Ninth Symphony or Das Lied von der Erde, in both of which words and music, finally, give way to silence, because that's all we are left with. And to close with that intimate setting of Ataturk's embracing, almost comforting sentiments was nothing short of genius.

My apologies for rambling. I will not be the only one to have been profoundly affected by last night, and not least by the UK-NZ cooperation with all its symbolism.’

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The Southbank Sinfonia, the Parliament Choir and members of the City Choir Dunedin perform Anthony Ritchie’s From Gallipoli to the Somme at Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre

Public Poetry Reading: ‘A Crack of Light’

After the grand climax of the Remembrance concert, we chose to end the Series with a reflective poetry-reading. This took place in the tranquil setting of the Victorian chapel of Harris Manchester College on 5 June 2018. Susie Campbell, Sue Zatland, Mariah Whelan and Patrick Toland read from works which they had been inspired to write by the Series. Our plan is to publish selections from these poems in the publication which we hope will be forthcoming. A recording of the event is available on our webpages.

Media We established a significant online presence for the Series. Our webpages were hosted by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), which will ensure that they are properly archived in perpetuity. We created a blog on which members of the Research Team posted regularly and which also features c. 35 guest posts. Dr. Gilbert maintained a Twitter feed (@PostWarOx) which attracted over 400 followers. We filmed all three launch events, the opening statements of all six panel-led workshops, and segments from the postgraduate events, concert and poetry reading. In addition, we conducted 46 interviews with Series participants. These videos and audios are all freely available online and on iTunes.

The Series also featured on the BBC radio programme The World At One, Jack FM, and on websites throughout Oxford University and Oxford Brookes University.

Impact and Legacy People from the following countries participated in our Series in some way: Australia, Austria, Burundi, Canada, Colombia, Czechia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Iraq, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Syria, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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During the academic year 2017-18, members of the Research Team brought out the following related publications:

Catherine Gilbert From Surviving to Living: Voice, Trauma and Witness in Rwandan Women’s Writing, (Montpellier: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée 2018) [monograph]

‘Mobilising Memory: Rwandan Women Genocide Survivors in the Diaspora’, Australian Journal of French Studies 55.1 (Spring 2018), pp. 54–66 [peer-reviewed article]

With C. Baker, ed., ‘Francophone Postcolonial Studies in the 21st Century’, Journal of Romance Studies, 17.2 (2017) [edited special journal issue]

Kate McLoughlin Veteran Poetics: British Literature in the Age of Mass Warfare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018) [monograph]

The First World War: Literature, Culture, Modernity (co-edited with Santanu Das) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018; simultaneously published as a special issue of Proceedings of the British Academy) [co-edited essay collection]

‘Introduction’, with Santanu Das, The First World War: Literature, Culture, Modernity, ed. Santanu Das and Kate McLoughlin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018; simultaneously published as a special issue of Proceedings of the British Academy), 1-35 [co-written book chapter]

‘Three War Veterans Who Don’t Tell War Stories’, The First World War: Literature, Culture, Modernity, ed. Santanu Das and Kate McLoughlin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018; simultaneously published as a special issue of Proceedings of the British Academy), 39-55 [peer-reviewed book chapter]

The following are in preparation or production:

Catherine Gilbert ‘Writing as Reconciliation: Bearing Witness to Life After Genocide’, accepted for publication in the volume Rwanda After 1994: Stories of Change, ed. Nicki Hitchcott and Hannah Grayson (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2019)

Kate McLoughlin ‘Mesopotamia’, Modernism/Modernity Print-Plus Platform, cluster on ‘War and Time’, ed. Beryl Pong (article under peer review)

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26 ‘Fatal Incomprehension’, Dead Ground, ed. Andrew McNeillie (Thame: Clutag Press, 2018) [peer-reviewed book chapter]

Niall Munro ‘Our only “felt” history’: American Modernism and the Civil War [monograph in preparation]

Members of the research team also gave related talks at the University of St Andrews; the National University of Ireland (Cork); the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, University of Oxford; the University of Chester; the University of Copenhagen; the University of Southern Denmark; the University of Glasgow; the University of Leuven, Belgium; and the Collegium de Lyon, France.

We are proud of the online legacy which we are leaving, and of the impact we have made outside the Series via talks and publications. In addition, we can mention a number of initiatives which other people are taking forward as a result of their participation in the series. Professor Kepa Fernández de Larrinoa, who attended the very first panel-led workshop, will be coming to Oxford on sabbatical leave from his university for the full academic year 2018-2019 in order to conduct further comparative research and write on Basque Memories of Conflict and Political Crime and Peace Process. Professor Robert Eaglestone reports that, following Rachel Seiffert’s talk in the second panel-led workshop, his Holocaust Research Institute invited her to give the prestigious annual David Cesarani Lecture 2019 (the first nonscholar writer to do so) and, in May 2019, she will be their first Writer-in- Residence. Niall Munro, Alex Donnelly, and Rita Phillips are in the process of organising a new project working with UK and US veterans to explore the value of poetry in recording and reflecting upon their experiences. Drawing on discussions during the Series about counter-monuments and the inadequacy of war commemoration for many veterans, they also plan to organise a non-traditional commemorative event. Catherine Gilbert has taken up a two-year Marie Curie Individual Fellowship at the University of Ghent, Belgium. Her primary objectives during this project are to curate an exhibition at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Brussels in 2020 featuring the works of Rwandan diasporic artists, and to publish a second monograph. Kate McLoughlin is carrying forward the research from the third term to focus on silence in literature.

Our plan now is for the co-convenors and postdoctoral fellow to edit a book based on the Series. Titled On Commemoration: Global Reflections Upon Remembering War, this will be aimed at the general public and will contain opinion-pieces, lyrical reflections and short essays by participants in the Series; transcripts from the keynote events and panelled workshops; poems by the poets-in-residence; and photographs of the Series. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the events, its contributors will come from a range of backgrounds: music, fiction, poetry, architecture, sculpture, history, law, politics, anthropology, literature, the charitable sector, the military, religion and conflict resolution. Creative practitioners, academics, policy-makers and

Mellon-Sawyer Series 2017-18—Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

27 field-workers will all be represented. The discussion will be thoroughly diverse and inclusive, ranging across armed conflicts of different historical periods and different geographical regions. The countries written about will include the UK and Northern Ireland, Australia, Canada, Germany, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Syria, the United Kingdom and the United States.

With the permission of the Mellon Foundation, we used funds remaining from the Series for publication expenses in September 2018—largely spent on transcriptions. We’re delighted to say that, on 8 October 2018, we signed a publishing contract for the book with Peter Lang Limited. On Commemoration will appear in 2020.

*

It remains for us to thank the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for making possible a year whose intellectual exhilaration exceeded all our expectations. We are taking away from it wonderful memories and abiding friendships.

Kate McLoughlin & Niall Munro (Co-Convenors) October 2018

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